Toronto/CMEDIA: Directed and screen played by Miwa Nishikawa, TIFF 2026 film ‘Children Untold’ adapted from Nishikawa’s forthcoming novel of the same name was world premiered in Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox on Sept 10.
Produced by Ami Koyae, set in Tokyo, Japan during the final days and immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the film features a compassionate postwar drama about a 12-year-old orphan Koji Yakusho (played by Kayano Kotoko) disguising herself as a boy to survive the underworld.
The plot of the film revolves around Kotoko who loses her family in the war, and joins a group of orphans surviving through odd jobs, theft, black-market trading, and the fragile protection of a local gang. At first, she earns money shining shoes and stays with an older girl who shows her how to survive on the streets. After she discovers that her companion is also making money by having sex with men, Kotoko realizes what life on the streets could mean for a young girl, cuts her hair, and begins passing herself off as a boy. Adopting a boyish demeanor, she gives herself the pseudonym Shigeo and sheds her past and identity in a last ditch attempt to make it out alive.
Meanwhile, her former teacher, Sone, burdened by poverty and guilt, sets out to find Kotoko, the student she failed to protect.
Nishikawa develops the story with remarkable sensitivity with the realities of abandonment, abused childhoods, and the compromises forced upon children and adults alike and incorportates its characters’ political, but mostly, personal histories.
In its attention to children surviving amid post war devastation, the film recalls Italian neorealism, social neglect, and moral uncertainty.
With extraordinary complexity and emotional control, the star Ami Koyae in his leading role captures Kotoko’s transformation from model student to street survivor.
Children Untold carries an urgent call as children continue to bear the consequences of conflicts around the world and highlights the responsibility adults and society bear toward those children left unprotected and leaves behind its legacy of a quiet sense of hope, resilience, and the timeless power of human connection.
Born in Hiroshima, Nishikawa received a degree in literature from Waseda University and apprenticed under Hirokazu Kore-eda. Her films include Wild Berries (03), Sway (06), Dear Doctor (09), and the Festival Official Selections Dreams for Sale (12), The Long Excuse (16), and Under the Open Sky (20). Children Untold (26) is her latest film.
